The present invention relates to use of printed documents to control computer systems. Exemplary documents include business cards, advertisements, and identification badges, but the invention is not so limited.
Over the past century, business cards have formed part of business ritual. Functionally, they serve as a record of an encounter, and detail means by which the giver may be contacted (address, phone, etc.).
Business cards have changed, essentially, not at all in response to the advent of computers. Some accommodation has been made for business cards on the computer side, in the form of specialized scanner and optical character recognition tools by which textual data printed on cards can be read and entered into personal productivity software tools (e.g. contact managers, address books, datebooks, personal information managers, etc.). However, the data transferred into the personal productivity software is static and unchanging.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, the textual information on a business card is supplemented with steganographically-encoded, multi-bit binary data. This latter data does not significantly distract from the visual aesthetics of the card (as would a bar code or the like), yet can be used by an associated computer to initiate a link to an internet site corresponding to the business card giver. At the site, the recipient of the card may gain access to the giver""s schedule, and other information that changes over time. (Such information may not generally be available over the internet to persons without the card data.)
The foregoing and additional features and advantages of the present invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.